- Biggest Pro: The quality of profiles
- Biggest Drawback: You can’t even browse profiles for free
Free Trial
There is no trial period here. However, the term “trial period” is definitely mentioned during the registration. The problem is that it’s not about this dating site at all.
Here’s how it works: here, they give you 1 month of a free trial but only after paying for a premium membership (that’s not how free trial works). What’s even more strange is that you’ll receive a trial period on Dating.com, a completely different dating site albeit from the same owners! And the final straw is the fact you can’t actually use this site without paying at least $120 for 3 months! You literally can’t do anything without paying here. That’s something rare to see, to be fair.
This website doesn’t offer a welcome bonus for new users, either. Well, this fits nicely with the strategy of Cupid Media (the owner company of this site)—they have 35 dating websites and none of them offer free trials or welcome bonuses.
EliteCupid in 5 Seconds
| Monthly visits | over 208K |
| Mobile version/app | Yes |
| Matchmaking filters | 2 basic search filters (sex, age range), 18 advanced search filters, all of them are free |
| Messaging on-site | Live chat, mails |
| Paid or free | Paid, no trial, $120-$228 |
| Site | elitecupid.com |
Who Is EliteCupid for?
EliteCupid is for those who want to find “someone who is their equal”, as they say. It’s one of a few dating apps for people who are interested in finding an educated and successful partner, and it also feels like the majority of the users of this platform are focused on a serious relationship.
Features and Benefits
- The profiles are very detailed and ID-verified
- The number of search filters is quite high
- It’s possible to hide your profile
- Message translation
- Android app and a nice mobile version of the site
The registration is… slow. You’ll have to spend at least 15 minutes to answer all those 85 questions and you can’t just skip them, all you can do is answer randomly which makes no sense because you won’t get any matches if you do it. And after that, they want you to pay for at least a 3-month membership which is mildly infuriating, to be honest. It’s not about those $120, it’s about the idea that you must pay for something you haven’t even touched yet!
Well, anyway. Let’s talk about the search tool and about the messaging features on this site.
Searching Guide
The dating pool here is pretty large, and free-roaming through all these profiles is definitely not the most effective way to find a match. If you want to find a perfect match, you need to use a search tool. Luckily, EliteCupid has a lot of search filters.
- The basic filters are: your sex, the sex of your potential partner, age range, last active, has/hasn’t photo
- The advanced filters are divided into several categories: geographical (country, state, and city), relationship type (penpal, friendship, romance, long-term), appearance (from height to hair color), lifestyle (smoking/drinking), background (education, religion, languages spoken, etc)
- You can find all the filters at the top of the page. Click “Search”, then click “Advanced” to get access to advanced filters.
When it’s good, it’s good. EliteCupid has a great search tool: we used all those filters to find different types of ladies, and it worked perfectly. You can find a woman with exactly the height and hair color you want, and that’s not even 10% of the search opportunities here.
Messaging Guide
Today’s dating services offer much more than just a live chat. However, EliteCupid is not the best example of an advanced dating app with lots of tools. Let’s see what this website offers:
- Live chat—it’s quite convenient and you can exchange media/emojis there
- To start chatting, click on the profile, and then, click on the letter button
- There’s no video chat here but you can send photos and videos while chatting
There are many dating sites that offer more messaging tools than EliteCupid, let’s be fair about it. However, we can’t say it’s too bad. The live chat tool is pretty convenient and the response rate is quite high here (higher than we expected from a dating app with “elite singles”). Women often text you first here and they usually send short messages like “hey, how was your day”, not complex, long, and personalized messages. But it’s totally ok.
Gift guide
Virtual and real gifts are basically a must-have for the modern online dating industry. A few years ago, only international dating apps focused on long-distance relationships had these features, but today? Every second dating site has it.
Well, not EliteCupid. All you can do here is add a girl to your favorite list or send her a message. No gifts available, be it a fun emoji or a gold bracelet.
Free and Paid Membership Guide
We reviewed dozens of dating sites, and all of them are not free to use—you always have to pay for something (typically, for messaging services). EliteCupid stands out from the crowd again. This site is not just paid, it’s super-paid—here, you’ll find no free features. Right after the registration, a new user is locked on the payment page. Until he makes the purchase, he can’t do anything.
The premium membership situation is also interesting here. Typically, the Cupid Media websites have three premium membership types: Gold, Platinum, and Diamond, with Gold membership being the cheapest and offering unlimited messaging and Diamond membership being much more expensive than the other two options.
Guess which one membership type they have at EliteCupid?
Right. Here, you can only purchase Diamond membership, and the most affordable option you have is a 3-month subscription ($120). If you don’t buy it, you can’t use the site.
If you do, however, you get access to a lot of interesting features, such as:
- Unlimited messaging—although there is only one messaging tool, it’s really unlimited and you can send as many messages as you want.
- Ranking above all the other members and getting double profile space in the search results—these features sound cool but only when you have 3 types of premium membership. When every member is ranked above and has 2x the profile space, you can’t flex it.
- Message translation To be fair, it’s a cool feature for 2010, but today, when you can translate everything in your browser instantly, it’s not that cool anymore.
- Hiding profile and photos We didn’t need it, but in some cases, it can be useful.
- Premium customer service available 24/7 Another service we didn’t need—we tested it and it was great, but that’s not something you do everyday.
So, the free version of this site is basically non-existent. The premium version is nice, the profiles are pretty detailed and verified, and there are lots of real people interested in real long-term relationships here. If you’re looking for a dating app with a nice welcome bonus and/or a free trial period, that’s definitely not your choice. If you are looking for an “elite” dating site and don’t mind paying $120 for something you can’t test for free, well, you should try EliteCupid.
Tip for Using EliteCupid to Find a Perfect Relationship
Researcher
The main feature of this site is its philosophy which in theory should lead to a higher quality of the profiles. Well, the profiles are really great here, and that’s why I definitely recommend you pay special attention to your photos and your profile in general. Answer all the questions carefully, write a catchy bio, find some great pictures—here, you need to stand out from the crowd. And do your best when it comes to that welcome message you send to other people. They often send generic icebreakers here, so if you spend some time and write an interesting and personal message, you’ll draw the attention of your perfect match easily.
